It would have been 4 separate DLC episodes if done today. And that's sort of what I thought when I first played it. It felt more like an expansion than an actual game.

Rome feels like a mediocre custom level, though I did like the return of Larson and Pierre. Russia had a good story and some iffy design choices. Ireland had a spectacular atmosphere and an interesting change of pace in level design. VCI was the most difficult by far; buggy and hard to complete without a walkthrough.

Chronicles is... an okay game. It's not a bad game, but I think it's the worst of the classic games. There's something about it that feels uninspired and boring to me. It lacks the complexity that levels like Palace Midas and Aldwych had in the previous games or the sadistic level design most TR3 levels had, where everything is challenging. Chronicles is simple and short. I describe it as that fun game you want to play when you're not up for a real challenge. The difficult really begins when you get to the VCI section... The VCI levels are as far from Tomb Raider as Core Design could create, more Metal Gear-ish than Tomb Raider, but they're pretty cool. And they're some of the most memorable levels in TR history IMO. Oh, and I must add that I love its storytelling. This is the game we finally get to see that beautiful FMV young Lara.

__________________
If you think Lud's Gate is a bad level, you won't go to Heaven.

I can't remember if I already posted in this thread, but Chronicles was a unnecessary installment with the PC/Mac versions being the only worthwhile versions because of the included level editor. The game is completely uninspired, linear, and rehashes the worst of the series–contemporary levels consisting of military bases and skyscrapers. Also, I hold a grudge because I think Chronicles played a big role (within the many) in hurting AOD's development. The game is just unnecessary and simply a cash-in because CORE didn't have AOD finished in time for the first film. Eidos basically ordered CORE to do it. Despite my negative impression, I will say that Chronicles did have a nice presentation, decent FMV cinematics, and Black Isle levels were decent. Overall, it's the weakest for sure, but ironically still plays much better than AOD. Chronicles was a waste. If Eidos was smart they would have left old era TR at TR4 and released the level editor free from there website. They should have let CORE work 100% on AOD w/ no other TR projects.

__________________
"Well you have my total attention now, I'm not quite sure if I've got yours."

After having beaten this recently I can safely say I enjoyed this better than TR TLR and is on par with III. Possibly even better. Here are my pros and cons.

Pros:

Brought back the pre-rendered loading screens even if they are just from the cutscenes
More variety of levels compared to TR 4
Levels went back to being more linear compared to TR 4 open world feel
Levels are short but sweet
Brought back Piere and Larson
All levels except two have three secrets like TR 2

Cons:
Literally the same engine from TR 4
Still can't restart level upon death
Still can't see your health bar in the inventory and need to draw your weapon to see how much you have
Larson seems to have a split personality???
Ambience tracks are short and tend to repeat too much
Big difficulty spike at the end
Last level has a game breaking bug causing you to reload an old file or worse start a new game
Some items are very small and blend in with the floor making them easy to miss